The Red Sox have checked in on free agent reliever Matt Moore this offseason, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive (Twitter links). The extent of their interest isn’t known, but Cotillo adds that fellow southpaw Andrew Chafin has not been on Boston’s radar thus far.
Moore and Chafin are arguably the two best remaining free agent relievers. Alongside Will Smith, they’re part of a group of quality left-handers whose market has unexpectedly lingered. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal linked a third of the league (Boston included) to the lefty relief market earlier in the week, but we’ve still not seen any notable movement since Taylor Rogers inked a three-year deal with the Giants before the calendar flipped to 2023.
The 33-year-old Moore spent a decade as a big leaguer starter, battling inconsistency along the way. The former top prospect had a couple strong seasons upon breaking in with the Rays but started to struggle in the wake of 2014 Tommy John surgery. He sandwiched a solid 2016 campaign between a trio of 5.00-plus ERA marks between 2015-18. Moore barely pitched in 2019, spent the ’20 campaign in Japan and was hit hard in his return showing with the Phillies two seasons ago.
Moore inked a minor league deal with the Rangers last offseason. He was in the majors again by mid-April and reinvented himself as a power arm out of the bullpen. Texas deployed him exclusively in relief, calling upon the veteran 63 times. Through 74 innings, Moore posted a stellar 1.95 ERA. He struck out batters at a strong 27.3% clip while generating swinging strikes on a massive 14.7% of his offerings. His fastball averaged around 94 MPH and he got excellent results on both his curveball and changeup, giving him a three-pitch arsenal to deploy in short stints.
The sole red flag in Moore’s 2022 performance was his control. He dished out walks to 12.5% of opponents, a rate more than three percentage points higher than average. ERA estimators like FIP (2.98) and SIERA (3.69) weren’t quite as bullish as his sub-2.00 ERA would suggest, as Moore was probably a bit fortunate to strand 81% of the baserunners he allowed. That said, there’s room for Moore to regress marginally from his 2022 level while still remaining a quality high-leverage option if he can sustain last season’s swing-and-miss prowess.
Moore certainly earned himself a big league deal this time around and he has a case for a multi-year pact even headed into his age-34 campaign. Former Red Sox hurler Matt Strahm secured a two-year, $15MM deal from the Phillies on the heels of a solid but arguably less impressive 3.83 ERA/3.30 SIERA showing.
Chafin has an even stronger argument for a two-year contract. He’s going into his age-33 season and coming off a second straight excellent year. He provided the Tigers 57 1/3 frames of 2.83 ERA ball with a 27.6% strikeout rate and 7.8% walk percentage. That was on the heels of a 1.83 ERA season between the Cubs and A’s in 2021. Speculatively speaking, it’s possible that’s leading to a loftier asking price than is coming from Moore’s camp to explain Boston’s seeming lack of interest in Chafin.
The Red Sox have a fairly straightforward desire for left-handed relief help. They’ve added Joely Rodríguez on a $2MM free agent contract but parted with Darwinzon Hernández and Josh Taylor after seeing Strahm leave in free agency. Rodríguez is the only assured lefty reliever on the 40-man roster, though starting pitching prospects Chris Murphy and Brandon Walter could theoretically find themselves in that mix. The Sox have signed Ryan Sherriff and Matt Dermody to minor league deals in recent days to strengthen the depth. Neither would take them out of the market for Moore, who’d be a more significant acquisition.
The Red Sox currently project for a player payroll in the $192MM range, as tabulated by Roster Resource. More meaningfully, they’re around $219MM in luxury tax obligations. That leaves them approximately $14MM shy of the $233MM base threshold, so a Moore deal would be financially viable while still leaving them some breathing room under the tax for midseason additions should they so desire. The Cubs are the only other team known to have checked in with Moore’s camp this winter, though there are surely numerous unreported suitors.
Sox can, and should, do this. 2/13. Rangers are acting odd to let him go.
The Red Sox payroll is currently at $218M. If they want to reset the luxury tax by staying below $233M, they only have about $15M left to spend. However, some of that may be used for guys who signed minor league deals such as Alfaro who will get $2M if he gets promoted. They could spend $5M-$6M for guys on minor league deals if they get promoted. Also, they probably want to leave some money ($5M maybe) for adding salary at the trade deadline. So, they may only have about $4M left to spend now if they want to reset the luxury tax. Not sure they want to reset the luxury tax, but it looks that way. They probably need a middle infielder more than bullpen help.
Tapia and Sherriff also
They will probably get a little relief from Barnes how much who knows but at least the league minimum if we assume someone picks him up.
That puts over the luxury tax by 0.5M
This is only approximate. Yes, they could have less than $4M left to spend depending on their thinking.
The Rangers blew their remaining budget on Nathan Evoldi, when they could have saved the draft pick and instead gone for a left fielder like Haniger (signed earlier, but still) and/or some relievers. They had Dunning and Odorizzi for the 5th spot anyways.
Bloom just loves shopping at Dollar Tree.
Chafin not signing to this point may be indicative of wanting to sign in a lower key environment instead of Boston, New York or Philadelphia.
Moore isn’t really Bloom “shopping at the Dollar Tree”. Moore is a former Ray so there is familiarity there and he was solid for the Rangers last season
1 solid season frm Moore after moving to the pen and he just could be shopping for a Strahm like 2/15m deal. Strahm is younger, had multiple solid seasons. It’s not hard to see why Moore is unsigned is my 2c.
Could be start of ST before he and Chaffin ink a deal, waiting for early injuries.
rsox–nonetheless it fits perfectly into Bloom’s philosophy of signing projects on 1 yr deals
Good
I didn’t know Story and Devers were Dollar Tree material.
Bloom just does nothing consistent.
Not the time to mention Story pwndroia
Its the perfect time. He mentioned Bloom shops at Dollar Tree. Whether you approve or not, we spent money on Story.
Bloom shops (in his mind) at Building 19. He gets discount prices on damaged goods.
pappas–good description
milt – That’s an excellent analogy, except I’d rephrase it slightly: He THINKS he is getting a discount on damaged goods.
Probably an ownership directive.
Goose;
Of course Mr. Bloom has to…..
Last year he had the 6th highest MLB payroll and his team finished in 5th place in their division.
Maybe if he listens to guys like you and convinces the owner to spend another $75m or so in 2023 the team can finish in 4h place
in their division.
Not the money we spent last year guys, it was a total failure/ breakdown with the pen and injuries to the starters. That’s what killed this team, so if you want to point fingers, Sale is at the top of the list and it rolls down hill from there with Evoldi, Wacha, and Whitlock… set up and closer spot was bad for the most part… Barnes was a big issue
Just saying, I don’t see how Matt Moore is Dollar Tree shopping. He was one of three LHP relievers with 60+ IP and a sub-2.00 ERA.
I actually like Moore
Some of these posters say that about everyone. The $5M that someone like Moore costs is decent money for a non-closer/setup RP.
I dont like everybody. I dont want Andrus or Harrison
Wondering what exactly Chafin is asking for in way of a contract. He’s been sitting unsigned for a long time this winter and there are numerous teams who could definitely use him. There has to be a reason, and the likeliest is his asking price is rather steep.
They all want the strahm contract or better
If that’s what Chafin is asking for of I’m Bloom I say ok, give him that deal and cut loose someone like Brasier or Ort and call it an off-season.
I am a little bit shocked that Jed Hoyer of Cubs or LA Angels have not already sign him.
Hand would be a better fit
I read this quickly at first and thought it said Hand would be a better foot, ha.
A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.
So are you talking about Brad Hand, Kyle Bird or Matt Bush?
All of them
I watched Moore pitch a lot for the Phllies in 2021. He was supposedly a #4 or #5 starter. After the first 6 or so weeks of the season where teams had faced them, he and the other backend starter couldn’t get to the 5th inning most of the time. They squandered a lot of big leads.
He has a great motion and release. A thing of beauty. Smooth. Delightful. Picturesque. Unfortunately his stuff his not impressive. He doesn’t throw hard and batters tend to time him pretty well.
He’d been in Japan for some years when the Phillies (NL) signed him for 2021. So when the Rangers (AL) got him to pitch out of the bullpen I figured he’d be pitching to a lot of players that had never faced him before. If someone can get stats on how he did facing individual hitters more than one time in 2022 I’d be interested.
Obviously his agent(s) are showing up with the public statistics and asking for a nice contract. My guess is that both the Rangers and other teams have doubts Mr. Moore can repeat his 2022 performance and want a number of performance-based incentives along with a low base contract.
I didn’t do it by batter, since that sounds like real work, but his 2nd half performance was similar to his first half. Some of them had to be repeat batters.
The question isn’t whether we are going to sign this guy or not… the question is which important player is Bloom going to DFA this time if we do sign him?
Braiser
@redsox for_life he had three chances of DFAing Brasier yet he DFA’d Hosmer, Darwinson and Matt Barnes before Brasier.
What they need to do is sign some guys like this to minor league deals with a wink and nod including a sizeable signing bonus.
You wait until ST starts, then drop a half dozen or names onto the IL and call these guys up. The signing bonus is the good faith to guarantee they earn their money and aren’t trapped on a minot league salary.
I think there’s going to be a massive number of transactions for the sox during the season with players sent up, down, and out the door. The 40 man doesn’t hold a lot of depth because of the number of injured major leaguers clogging spots and guys not ready. The non-40man took some damage in the rule 5, at least on the pitching side. The current quality of what remains isn’t inspiring
GASox – There’s always a lot of transactions with Bloom, among the most in MLB if not the most. That’s what happens when you use the throw-poop-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach all the time.
Fever Pitch Guy
GASox – There’s always a lot of transactions with Bloom
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I curious to see your documentation for that assertion. I only looked at the NYY. They had 47 transactions from 4/1-9/30/22. The RS I believe had 34.
JoeBrady – Are you suggesting Bloom doesn’t really do more transactions than most GMs? I can check into that but if he does make more does it really matter? Are we judging quantity not quality? That’s why I’m going to skip the count because while I agree with GA and Fever it’s not as relevant as the quality of pick-ups.
MLB posted the teams with most Prospects in the top 100. I fully expected to see Boston since I’ve been criticized during the last three years for suggesting the farm system isn’t getting better. My assertion is that it got a big boost from Mayer (125 points?) and jumped from 21 to 9 but otherwise has really tailed off not gotten better.. Let’s see what’s in the cupboard!!.
I was shocked to find out Boston only has 4 in the top 100:
#9 Marcelo Mayer (find it hard to believe he’s that high based on his performances so far)
#23 Tristan Casas (again shocked he’s that high based on performance)
#86 Ceddanne Rafaela (reasonable since he’s actually done well)
#93 Miguel Bleis (an 18 yr old CF who stinks on defense and has done absolutely nothing to be ranked in the top 100 except be born in the DR)
Mayer was a gift that fell from #2 to #4 and made the farm system top 10 over night. Casas is a DD guy who is lucky to have survived the Bloom years. Rafaela is another DD guy who is a solid AA player at age 21 from Curacao (international signee). He was Boston’s Minor League Player of the Year in 2022 after being signed for $10K in 2018. Bleis is yet another international signee who is being highly promoted by Bloom despite a very small sample of average play. Why this guy is on anyone’s radar is beyond me but that’s why rankings are never reliable. The kid will be 19 in 2023 and has had one season in the DOSL where he hit .252 and then at 18 he played in the Florida Complex League (so Rookie ball) and hit .310 in 40 games. How does a guy play 76 games in two low leagues in the minors and get ranked in the top 100? Politics like Downs. He may be a DFA waiting to happen or he may someday be great but clearly he’s NOT a top 100.
So is Bloom good at drafting? The gift of Mayer aside, he has nobody in the TOP 100 that he drafted including Yorke who dropped dramatically last year.
So, whether there have been lots or few moves the farm system really isn’t soaring like many suggest. The four guys in the top 100 are a gift (Mayer fell from 2 to 4), two DD guys and an infant who doesn’t belong.
I’m not impressed considering Baltimore has EIGHT of the top 100 including Gunner Henderson the #1 prospect. Granted they have picked most years before Boston they have done a great job. Cleveland has SEVEN and they have picked after Boston most years since 2020. The Dodgers have 7 so maybe Friedman has drafted better than Bloom since he arrived. The surging Texas Rangers have SIX but they have probably drafted slightly earlier than Boston but still should Boston be closer to SIX than they are if Bloom is going such a great job?
In the end, forget about quantity of mistakes, how about the number of bad draft choices he’s made since he arrived compared to other teams? Do you agree Bloom has fallen far short of expectations of his drafting other than his lucky break with Mayer dropping two spots?
Joe – I am referring to players who are acquired or let go.
I am not referring to players called up or sent down, or players placed on the IL or activated from it.
If you provide a link I will confirm your numbers, it’s what i do.
Have you ever heard of a GM that took a guy out of a big contract to play for your team only to ditch him at the end of the season at the minimum league amount? I don’t think anyone did what Bloom did to Eric Hosmer… if I were Hosmer, I’d be pretty upset right now.
@Fever Pitch is correct about Bloom’s approach. I may disagree with him on the effects of it but in the execution, I agree with Fever.
pedey – Thank you!
And one thing about Hosmer you left out, $1.75M of his 2023 salary will count against the Red Sox Luxury Tax Payroll this year.
Bloom threw away $1.75M of 2023 payroll space on a player who provided just 50 PA’s last year and who won’t provide the Sox any PA’s this year.
Absolutely atrocious decisionmaking by Bloom.
I thought long and hard about responding to you on your rudimentary minor league knowledge that apparently begins and ends with batting average.
Based on how you rate a prospect then the consensus number 1 you praised Gunner Henderson sucks his minor league batting average is only .276. Even better Adley Rutschman last year consensus number 1 only hit .271 in the minors he must really suck. I got news for you KD there is a lot more to evaluating a minor league player then looking at his batting average.
It’s impossible to rate Blooms drafts and international signings it takes 5 to 7 to determine that you should know this. All we have is opinions at this point did Bloom miss on Walker yes he did but so did a bunch of other GM’s will his strategy of going under slot to go over on some later picks work out who knows. We just won’t know until probably after Bloom is gone
KD you should stick to calling out Devers defense someone you have actually seen. How do you know Bleis sucks at defense? Have you ever seen him play? I haven’t so all I can go on is what I have read and what I have read is he as at minimum an average center fielder who will stick defensively in center or well above average right field defender with a right fielders arm. This doesn’t sound like a poor defender to me. I can’t wait to actually see him to form my own opinions you should too.
Bruin1012 – Everything I write is fairly lengthy compared to most. I point out BA frequently to short cut presenting all the issues. So if you prefer a detailed analysis of all stats on every player I ever mention then you are going to make lots of people unhappy.
So lets deal with the specifics you chose to question. How do I know Bleis sucks on defense? An outfielder with a fielding percentage of .976 is bad. Can he get better? Sure. Has his performance his first two years been radically different? Yes. Can anyone know which is the real Bleis defensively? Nope. So for now we average the horrible and the good and the average is bad. In 2023 he’ll have his chance to prove he’s not as bad as his numbers but rating services putting players on the top 100 without any true competitive baseball is ridiculous. Bleis isn’t alone. There are many DR and other international players who have next to no experience in the top 100 of BA, MLB and ROTOWIRE. Usually ROTOWIRE is the fairest because they use numbers more than the other two. BA and MLB rankings are more a reputation based number until proven wrong. Thus, Swihart above Mookie. That was a political rating that reflected Boston’s front office’s opinion on the two players. Shows you how smart the front office was when Mookie as in the low minors!!
If you don’t believe me, go read the hype written by Baseball America Latin scouts. It’s eerie how exaggerated the praise is because it’s just like what they wrote about Jeter Downs. Never great hand/eye coordination but lots about the sound off the bat. Heck they praised his defense in the year he made 4 errors on 69 chances. You can trust opinions all you want. I trust numbers that reflect their performance. So to date, Bleis is a bad defensive outfielder that will need to improve to make it to the majors. He also has to start facing real competition before we declare him a superstar. He’s about at the same stage as so many other over-hyped Bloom acquisitions that never have panned out. The great Hamilton who is only on the team thanks to Cora. The great Frenchy Cordero who was to replace Benny. Do you want me to name another 3 dozen guys who haven’t lived up to the hype created by Bloom’s marketing department?
Your Adley Rutschman comment was strange. He hit .411 at Oregon State then moved to professional baseball where he hit .281 in the minors not .271 and that was at every level of the minors not a DOSL or ROK. His college numbers proved his value since the competition level was extremely high. He’s not at all like Bleigh who hasn’t played anyone good yet.
If I hit a nerve with Bleigh, chill out. His performance to date can be improved significantly. You focused on the wrong aspect of what I was complaining about. He doesn’t belong in the top 100. That’s all. He’s there for political reasons like Swihart and Downs. I really hope he someday earns a spot in the top 100 but that hasn’t happened so far. Did you know Yorke, who started out great has fallen off and is not in all 3 major top 100 lists? Why? Because the more numbers he puts up the less he projects into being a star. Can he rebound? Sure. Time will tell.
People believe too much in the top 100 lists and farm system ratings. They are all political. Gunnar Henderson’s .276 average in the minors is a perfect example of a team promoting a player too soon. He’s a very talented player that should have stayed in the minors longer but proved he might belong with his .259 rookie average in 34 games. My guess is he will regress since he wasn’t truly ready for the promotion but I hope I’m wrong. His average in the minors also is not comparable to Bleis since it included all levels where the pitching was far superior to the pitchers faced by Bleis.
For a guy who claims to be an expert in analyzing minor league players because you consider all stats, you seem to miss the big picture items of what level they are playing at, how good is the competition and what else have they accomplished in their career. You shouldn’t discount NCAA baseball as if it’s no better than the DOSL. It’s far better for the players that play DIV I ball in a competitive conference.
KD, the fact is all these players will be challenged at some point and growth is not linear. We have to remember these are 18-24 year old kids for the most part it’s impossible to know there maturity level and how the are going to handle the inevitable adversity. I believe, with most prospects this is the difference between guys that are expected to succeed and those that don’t. Adversity, as all things in life, determine the individual and baseball is no exception.
Fever Pitch Guy2 days ago
Joe – I am referring to players who are acquired or let go.
I am not referring to players called up or sent down, or players placed on the IL or activated from it.
If you provide a link I will confirm your numbers, it’s what i do.
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Go to BR, click on a team, click on transactions, and then count the number from 4/1-9/30. On August 30, for example ,the NYY signed three players. Between them, they pitch 6.1 innings. Teams do this all the time. Teams are supposed to do this all the time.
But that’s not the important part. The important part is that you asked me to document my assertion. I wouldn’t have to if you had already documented yours.
“among the most in MLB if not the most. ” If you knew that to be true, you wouldn’t simply posted your source for that statement. Since you didn’t, I have to assume you made it up.
Are you suggesting Bloom doesn’t really do more transactions than most GMs? I can check into that but if he does make more does it really matter?
=========================
You’re right, the quantity doesn’t matter. which is why I was surprised that Fever fell into the trap of criticizing it. Besides being objectively wrong, the number doesn’t matter at all.
I think the Yankees added maybe 21 during the course of the season. I think maybe 20 added up to about -0-. The other guy they added was Carpenter. That addition way more than paid for the 20 that didn’t make it.
Fever Pitch Guy1 day ago
And one thing about Hosmer you left out, $1.75M of his 2023 salary will count against the Red Sox Luxury Tax Payroll this year.
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Once again, care to document that statement?
The surging Texas Rangers have SIX
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Just for fun, I checked the BA top-100, and the Rangers had 3 in the top-100. And the same three do not fit the Bloom time-frame, as they were acquired prior to the date that Bloom joined the RS (Jung, Carter, and White). So in the same time frame that Bloom has been with the RS, the Rangers acquired -0- top 100 prospects.
There is a reason I mention this. It takes time to develop prospects. 2020 was 5 rounds, and 2021/22 is just too soon. Leiter & Rocker have been awful, but the sample size is too small to judge them on.
Did you look at minor league transactions too? Bloom uses a lot of AAA guys in the Majors from time to time and switches them out.
I’m waiting for Fever to fall into that trap next, and then I will give you my opinion.
Just seeing if Fever is going to document that $1.75M, because it makes no sense to me. I could be wrong, but I have no idea how someone would calculate that.
Since Fever apparently not falling into a second trap, I looked at that before I looked at the overall number of transactions. Both the NYY and RS used 54 players in 2022. TO had 51, BA had 58 and TB had 61.
Both sets of stats fall under the category of “it is not necessary to criticize everything”. Sometimes the numbers mean nothing.
Ort
I agree I doubt Moore has similar results this year. I also tend to agree that Chafin and Moore are looking for deals at least equal to Strahm’s. Chafin deserves it imo. I hope Jed signs either Chafin or Smith..sox can have Moore.
Pure lefty specialists are a thing of the past with the rules now. With pitchers now having to face 3 hitters out of the pen, any lefty that is capable of getting out righties, and really good against upper tier lefty hitters is the man. I never liked the idea of a one lefty pen. It’s dangerous if you need to call on them more than once a game in important situations, if you overwork them, or lose them to any injury. Too easy for other managers to exploit also.
I’m wondering why the Rangers haven’t resigned him. He may have found his calling in the bullpen.
The dude had a solid year as a full time reliever last year. 0.4 hr/9 in Arlington says a lot. I’m surprised he has been snatched up yet.
That’s exactly the issue. He may have gotten lucky since his stuff wasn’t quite that great and he isn’t the type who is hard to hit homeruns off. If his HR/9 goes up, his ERA will increase quite a bit for a guy with that many walks. His expected ERA is a point higher, which may lead to the discrepancy in values.
According to Fangraphs his stuff was up across the board last year.
His fastball was up 2 mph and the effectiveness for all his pitches played way up out of the bullpen last year. In 2021 the effectiveness of his pitches were real bad according to fangraphs so maybe his bullpen transformation is real.
I will say this isn’t from observation but the difference between 2021 and 2022 is very large and it across all his pitches looks like they all played up out of the bullpen.
Also, his walk rate improved as the season went on.
He wouldn’t be the first veteran starter who found out his stuff played up in a relief role. It appears his pitches are much more effective out of the pen.
Yes. Luke Hochevar and Wade Davis are perfect examples.
He had three ‘luck’ factors working in his advantage.
LOB% 81.1% v a career 71.8%
BABIP .257 v a career .296
HR/FB 4.2% v a career 10.1%
I might sign the guy on a cheap one-year contract, but I expect a lot of reversion, as does FG. They project a 3.98 ERA.
He looks like a great example of an average starting pitcher who found his comfort zone as a reliever and excelled at it ie. Andrew Miller or Drew Pomerantz. For the Sox with a roster full of low risk- high reward players he’s worth a flyer on for 1 year.
I think we both forgot about Mariano Rivera.
deGrom – If he’s available lets sign him!!
Who haven’t they showed interest in?
Jays should be in on him and Britton
One more lefty Pen piece is needed
Everyone’s interested in Moore, Chafin and Will Smith but no one wants to commit.
I’m tellin ya the Red Sox are making some low key sneaky moves and they could surprise people this year in the AL East.
I guess there is a chance they could catch the Os and claim 4th place, and, that would be fairly surprising
Like they’re not making big splashes but they’re making all these decent moves. For example, Turner could rake at Fenway.
Possible. What would the surprise entail? 4th place? 116 wins? A player winning rookie of the year? I would be pleasantly surprised by them playing meaningful games with 60 games left in the season. I would be surprised if that rotation stays intact. I would be surprised if a bunch of players are still wearing Red Sox uniforms one day after the trade deadline.
Speaking of relievers, I think Corey Knebel (former Texas Ranger prospect) is still available in free agency, and I saw a tweet that Texas had signed Ian Kennedy to a minor league deal.
Moore was the best arm in my Rangers bullpen last season. I’d like to see him in Arlington again.
Bloom will be fired at the end of the year. It doesn’t matter who he signs. The Sox are 2 or 3 years from contention and that’s assuming they hit on several prospects. To be competitive this year they would need so much to work out, but that’s not likely. The offense and rotation are worse. The bullpen should be better but that won’t matter if your starters suck. I hope Sale can regain some of his form but I have not hope kluber or Paxton.
@soxfan…… They’re not firing Bloom by year’s end. They’re content not to compete in 23. At the winter get together in Springfield, John Henry stated that good players were expensive. Bloom made the statement that they had to look beyond this year.(24 and beyond). Players who provide utility, flexibility, and lower salary, are what will be 2023. My hope is that they don’t do it again in 24.
“Bloom will be fired at the end of the year.”
soxfan4381;
I’ve been reading that here from Sox fans for 2-3 years now.
Keep on posting. Sooner or later you’ll be right.
Moore:
1.95 ERA
1.176 WHIP .
My guess Texas will match whatever his best offer from the Sox or anyone else.
“Red Sox showing interest…a Moore deal would be financially viable…”
Translation – the Red Sox will offer him a one year deal at a team-friendly rate and he’ll agree unless another club offers slightly more., at which point the Red Sox will not budge and they’ll still be looking for left handed relief help.
Not a bad signing, if they do it. The key guy who was effective last year was Strahm who pitched well and left the team for the Philadelphia Phillies. He threw some shots at the team in particular Chaim Bloom. He wanted to win now. This team Bloom put together is not a great team. I said their starting pitching is very questionable with three top starters coming back from major injuries. Kluber cannot be relied on heavily either. He has a major injury history as well. I said, there is nothing in this lineup besides Devers who scares me. They still need a shortstop, a second baseman or are they going to put Kike Hernandez there or in centerfield. Christian Arroyo is constantly hurt. They still need a second baseman. Modesi, who they picked up from the Royals can steal bases but cannot hit. He is nowhere near the hitter Bogaerts was. Trevor Story was damaged goods but Chaim saved 20 million and the guy missed tons of time last year and will miss most of this year if not all of it. He was erratic with his hitting and I said it could be the injury to his elbow that affected the hitting.
The catching looks very shaky and you are depending on McGuire who has been a backup to start ? Bloom could have signed Christian Velasquez but did not. He wanted to come back too.
Yes Bloom fixed the bullpen but there are far too many holes and he blew it by not going after the established free agents.
There is nothing exciting about this team that portrays a winning team. It is like it is thrown together in the hopes it can compete. He shops at Filenes Basement for bargains. I firmly believe that after the team flops this year it will spell the end of Chaim Bloom as a Baseball Operations Manager, hopefully! I don’t think John Henry will have any choice but to fire him.
A good summary of where they are headed into 2023. As far as Bloom, is this the last year of his contract anyway? Anyone know if he was signed beyond this next year?